Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb111163 (pronounced Albin) was submitted in protest of the Baby Naming Law. Rejected. The parents tried
“A” (also pronounced Albin). Rejected. Also rejected: Metallica, Superman, Veranda, Ikea, Stallion, Keenan Got Lucy, Sex
Fruit, Akuma, Pluto, Monkey, and Elvis. @ was rejected tho it’s pronounced ai-ta as in “love him”. Accepted names include Benson and Hedges (for a set of twins), Midnight Chardonnay, Number 16 Bus Shelter, Google (as a middle name), Lego, and Violence.
TWO surgical catgut vials (one large one small), TWO rows of porcelain human teeth set on wav strips, a complete box of handmade, handlabeled microscope slides, a bird skeleton in lucite, a petrie dish filled with dry blossoms, lavender, and a quartz chip, a clear square box filled with a dry mushroom, skeleton key, and small shell, a clear
square box filled with lichen, a SCORPION in lucite, a peacock feather, a large shell, a HANDSPREAD PINNED dry butterfly, a constellation plate card for ‘leo’, TWO
geode pieces, a small leatherbound blank journal. And a dried-out bat.
Thus, it might be possible to argue for a certain predominance of the aesthetic/affective domain in making sense of politics, a dominance that follows the shift in technology, from production to simulation. It is not enough to ask
what are the technological and political conditions, one must also ask what are the affective and aesthetic conditions: how is it experienced
and what do people think possible? How else can one even begin to make sense of a time when the working class fantasizes about tax cuts while having no chance of ever getting lost jobs back? O San Precario, protect us!
[Note: Source: 120. David K. Israel, Mental Floss, “Oh no, you can't name your baby THAT!”, at
CNN, 3 Jul 010. For Jenny Hudson. 121. Jessica-Naomi, “Not sure if anyone wants to spend 300 dollars on a wunderkammer, but if so I have one for sale :)”, at LiveJpournal.com, 27 Jul 010. 122. Jason Read, "The Composition and Decomposition of the Radical Imagination: Remarks on Class Composition”, at Unemployed Negativity, 12 Jul 010; San Precario: “Since February 2004 San Precario, patron saint of precarious, casualised, sessional, intermittent, temporary, flexible, project, freelance and fractional workers, has appeared in various Italian cities. The saint appears in public spaces on occasions of rallies, marches, interventions, demonstrations, film festivals, fashion parades, and, being a saint, processions. Often he performs miracles. Although the first appearances are recorded on 29 February 2004, San Precario has multiplied and materialised in different disguises. Equitable in his choices, San Precario does not privilege one category of precarious worker over another, and he can appear in supermarkets in urban peripheries, in bookstores or, glammed up, at the Venice Film Festival. San Precario is also transgender, and it has appeared also as a female saint. A ‘cult’ has spread rapidly and has led to the development of a distinct and colorful iconography, hagiography and rituals. Appropriating the Italian Catholic tradition of carrying saint statues in processions in urban spaces, the cult of San Precario functions at the same time as détournement, as a Temporary Autonomous Zone (TAZ), as carnival. It is also a tactic to make visible issues arising from the increasing casualisation of the work force. At a different level it can be considered a site of mythopoetic production. The story of San Precario, its beginnings, transformations and spreading, is here brought into play to explore the current politics and poetics of precarity in Italy.” See Marcello Tarì and Ilaria Vanni, “On the Life and Deeds of San Precario, Patron Saint of Precarious Workers and Lives”, at Fibreculture 5, from which the preceding quote is taken]